Ah, but with Gears of War and Halo is that it did have DLC for it's online play.

I am a fan of online play. Never actually had anything w/DLC though. I remember the first time I heard of online play though....it was ove rmy head. Too good to be true and with the frequent lag on most games, it pretty much was. 😛 But really online play is like my new thing man. Love it.

I'm more towards online play, personally. As much as I like having game-enhancing DLC, especially if free (see the Free For All pack for Crackdown), a lot of DLC isn't anything i couldn't live without and I generally abstain if it'll cost me anyway unless it looks like it will enhance the game for me. Online play is a brilliant addition to most games if done correctly, and particularly helps bridge gaps and keeps you from having to organise having a number of people shipping over to your house with their consoles and tvs to set up an equivalent game locally. My only misgiving is that it seems to be killing local play to a degree, as seen by the decline in split screen and even system link options in favour of online.

If all DLC was free (or close to it) then I would lean towards DLC, but as it is not, online play >

I have no experience with online play, so no comment there.

As for Downloadable content: screw that, give us the option to create and share our own custom content, even if made from scratch in an external program.

I have no experience with online play, so no comment there.

As for Downloadable content: screw that, give us the option to create and share our own custom content, even if made from scratch in an external program.

But surely it'd be better to play something official, rather than fan-made as DLC? As often enough, fan-made mods and games can be very tacky...

And besides that, user-made custom content usually exists alongside official content anyway.

I love online play. No matter how many times you play, it is always something new. Sure the levels are all the same, but interacting with real people around the world brings variety that you can't get offline.
I do appreciate DLC though, but devolopers can use this to their advantage. Instead of putting the content onto the disk, they just wait a few months and let you buy new content for the game that they could have easily put onto the disk. Unless the content is free than I don't see any problem with that.

After playing the new console Battlefield: Bad Company last night, I realised how good online is, especially in potential. Anyone played that online yet?

the only thing with Bad Company is it is a strong case for bad DLC, in that EA has confirmed that they plan on releasing new weapons as premium dlc.

i would link the relevant Penny Arcade comic but the site doesn't seem to want to work at the moment.

That's true, that DLC can gtive people a real upper-edge, I think people need to learn to balance DLC. In my opinion, DLC should mainly be a single player thing.

I actually quite like some multiplayer DLC. New maps for shooters for example can add new life to the game. The problem I have is that they seem to be getting more expensive than they're worth lately. If they're priced reasonably (or are going to be marked down in future), and it doesn't nerf your online experience if you don#t/can't get them, then i'm happy with it.

All the talk about DLC and online play ticks me off. It's a forgone conclusion in this thread that any such thing would cost money, but long before I owned an X-Box, I was downloading hundreds of Half-Life mods, and participating in online matchmaking without paying a dime. Mewtamer's comment particularely stuck in my throat.

"As for Downloadable content: screw that, give us the option to create and share our own custom content, even if made from scratch in an external program. "

Again, this has been happening with PC games since the dawn of PC gaming.

On the other hand, episodic content I'm all in favor of if it's done right. For example, the new Sam and Max series was done right. New episode every new month or so.

For an example of episodic content gone wrong, look no further than Valve's Half-Life 2 expansions. The gaps in between episodes are as long as other games take to put out entire sequals, so in order to justify the time spent on them, they need to cram them full of extras (don't get me wrong, Portal is the best extra ever made and totally stole the show from Episode 2, but there would not have been an Orange Box without Episode 2). The idea behind episodic content is to have frequent updates of smaller portions. Valve's got the smaller portions down pat, they just need the frequent updates.

I'm keeping an eye on Bioware and Mass Effect. This month they released the first DLC episode four months after it was released. If they keep this up, with a new episode every four months, I'd be happy.

I agree that the Half Life 2 episodes do take forever to release - we haven't even heard anything solid on Episode 3 yet - but I feel there is good reasoning behind it. Valve always do a ton of playtesting to make sure everything's perfect; how the game's story flows, how the gameplay progresses...as Yahtzee said, Valve have got the cheaper and shorter nailed down for epsiodic, but haven't got the more frequent going. Although I feel the episodes are good enough to warrant such delays, even if I'd rather they weren't there.

I'm curious how they plan to release Episode 3 to console owners. Will it be downloadable content for the Orange Box, or will they have to release it on a seperate disc? Or not at all? I'd quite like if they released it as an expansion for the same price as they sell it on Steam, to be honest.

And I have to agree with the Mass Effect content thing. It was a little short, but for 400MS points it's entirely justifiable. It was a cool addition to the game, not required by any means but certainly a fun addon, and I hope they keep releasing them up until the eventual Mass Effect 2.

As an aside, I think Bring Down The Sky shows that Bioware are aware of their criticisms; it autosaved extremely often, which was useful, and also ran a lot smoother than the rest of the game, mainly because it was running off the HDD but it may cause them to consider hard drive caching anyway.

Hmmm, about the episode 3 thing consoles, I think they could just shove a bunch of mods on a disk (Day of Defeat) and maybe some single player ones ones (Portal 2 and other new experiences?).

I like online play as a feature in games, just because every real good game nowadays has it, but what I don't like is the sudden rash of excellent single-player games that are really, really short because developers had to cram in an online mode, or a bunch of useless features. But I do think it's necessary, if nothing else, than just because every other game out there has it, and even though I don't play online much myself, a lot of people do. On that note, I would like to see more original online play - ever notice that pretty much every FPS feels the same online? There's very few games that offer an online mode truly unlike any other.

I don't like DLC because it's inconvenient for me to get them (I don't have paypal or other such things - maybe it's not so bad for XBL users or PSN members that have money on the account) and it just seems like a way to nickel and dime users to death. Just going off some prices seen on PSN, Rock Band is a few dollars per new song, and Motorstorm is like $6 for a new car on it. Now, that's not too annoying, because if people want to spend their money like that, that's their perogative - but it's annoying when they affect online games, for a reaso nsomeone else mentioned - it gives players a way to unfairly earn an advantage. Sure, a lot of other games give advantages to certain players - think Call of Duty 4's unlockable perks and weapons - but usually those are unlocked on the player's merit, not the player's wallet. That at least represents a fair oppertunity for any player.

I'm actually quite interested in the Rock Band downloadable songs. Obviously the game isn't out this side of the pond yet so I can't get the songs, but I think I will definitely buy a few if I get it. I think I'm pleased with how Harmonix are pricing the tracks, and what songs they are choosing to put into their game; one of the main reasons I refuse to buy any Guitar Hero DLC is because the packs are usually expensive and of bands I'm not at all interested in. It also doesn't help that there's no great single player use for them in GH (they can't be applies to campaign mode because it uses a preset setlist), and you can only play them with someone else online if they have bought it themselves. They should really do a Crackdown-esque thing where, if you play with someone with the content, you can temporarily access it yourself for that session. The only downside is it would demand a HDD for online play since you'd need a reasonable cache to store it in temporarily.

Speaking of Crackdown, it's a good example of how DLC doesn't have to nickel and dime users; it released a free content pack and a premium content pack at the same time, and the free content pack added loads to the game, including Keys to the City, which is essentially a debug mode and fun as all hell. I think the main thing with DLC is value for money, and I think Oblivion has displayed both sides of the coin - if it's nothing more than a cash in like the horse armour, then it's bad DLC. If it's a worthwhile, fun and appropriate addition to the game, like the Shivering Isles expansion pack, then it's good DLC.

Also, free DLC is very rarely bad DLC.

Nintendo's missing out on a fortune here. Think about all the characters people wanted in Brawl that didn't make it. Now think of how much money they could make by selling them later as DLC.

It's an evil plan, I kinda feel a little dirty to say it out loud.

Nintendo's missing out on a fortune here. Think about all the characters people wanted in Brawl that didn't make it. Now think of how much money they could make by selling them later as DLC.

It's an evil plan, I kinda feel a little dirty to say it out loud.

If I recall, in the latest podcast for 1Up Yours, they mention a game based on Hasbro (I think) characters that is basically a Brawl rip-off. But it has DLC characters, it could be amazing.

Concerning the Battlefield: Bad Company DLC weapons, X3F have made a stat comparison video based on the information available from the beta of the game. Overall it isn't as bad as it could potnetially have been.

Oh, and the relevant Penny Arcade comic on this issue, since I was unable to link it earlier.